Court Rejects Motion by Rocket Software to Dismiss CA’s Claims of Copyright Infringement and Trade Secret Misappropriation

Federal Judge’s Decision Based on Rocket’s Alleged Concealment of Wrongdoing

ISLANDIA, N.Y. – In CA’s case against Rocket Software, Inc. seeking damages of at least $200 million and preliminary and permanent injunctions for misappropriation of CA software products for DB2®, a federal judge denied Rocket’s motion to dismiss as untimely CA’s claims for copyright infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets.

In a 33-page decision, the Honorable Arthur D. Spatt determined that CA reasonably relied upon Rocket’s “affirmative representations of independent development and its detailed, emphatic denials of copying.” The Court also noted that Rocket’s assurances, if untrue “would work a deception capable of lulling the plaintiffs into believing their suspicions were baseless.”

The Court thus rejected Rocket’s statute of limitations defense to CA’s trade secret claims, finding that “Rocket stated that it conducted a thorough investigation and affirmatively denied use of the plaintiffs’ code, further inhibiting CA’s discovery” of the alleged misappropriation.

Based on this decision, CA will be permitted to present evidence on these claims to the federal court. The decision also resolved motions to dismiss some of CA’s other claims in the action, granting some and denying others. CA is free to pursue its actual damages from profits of Rocket’s alleged copyright infringement.

Today’s decision, filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, follows the August 2007 filing of an amended complaint in which CA alleged that Rocket stole intellectual property associated with a number of CA’s key database management software products. According to the complaint, Rocket “knowingly and intentionally stole from CA the source code and development environment” and used the intellectual property to create many, if not all, of its software tools for the IBM® DB2® relational database management system.

Rocket’s DB2 products are distributed through IBM to customers worldwide. CA alleges that Rocket obtained the source code and development environment for these products by hiring programmers and software developers formerly employed by CA or PLATINUM technology International, Inc., which CA acquired in 1999.